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Max Mara: Moods For Moderns

One major Italian brand noted for its ability to read fashion trends and supply up-to-date clothes for well-dressed career women is Max Mara. Judging from its runway show in Milan on Saturday, Sept. 25, it means that women will be wearing jaunty, sleek clothes next spring with a large dose of active sportswear elements.

Prints were entirely banished from this spring 2011 collection, with an emphasis instead on elegantly practical fashion. These were clothes that will look new for many months, even years, after a woman buys them.

Razor sharp coat dresses in sturdy silks, cut three inches above the knee and worn with micro belts, or flared jerkins in silk and micro fibers all looked authoritative – the sort of image an industrious woman would like to a wear to a key meeting.

Active elements included flat front ski pant style trousers cut above the ankle and with modest flare, gym-type leggings worn under slim-line sheathes and cool fencing style tops.

Adding to the sense of being right in step with the current zeitgeist the show had a few savvy allusions to Yves Saint Laurent – like polka-dot trenches and injections of violet and crimson. The YSL retrospective in Paris’ Petit Palais has rippled through New York, London and Milan and the soupcon of the great designer’s design chords was smartly judged in Max Mara.

Though no designer ever takes a bow on a Max Mara runway, this is possibly Milan’s largest show in terms of numbers, with some 900 people in the show space. The group has stores in 70 countries and the brand takes over 1,500 ad pages worldwide, so every major fashion magazine editor attends the show.

The season they will have little trouble finding great Max Mara clothes to put in their editorial spreads. Clean, sleek and minimal, this collection was very much of the moment.

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